[Improvement of laboratory diagnostics of cholera due to genetically altered (hybrid) variants of cholera Vibrio biovar El Tor].

Aim: Improvement of laboratory diagnostics of cholera taking into the account appearance of hybrid variants of cholera vibrio El Tor biovar in the 1990s.

Materials And Methods: Phenotypic and molecular-genetic properties of typical toxigenic (151 strains) and hybrid (102 strains) variants of El Tor biovar cholera vibrios, isolated in the Caucuses in 1970-1990 and 1993-1998, respectively, were studied. Toxigenicity gene DNA fragments, inherent to El Tor biovars or classic, were detected by using a reagent kit "Genes of Vibrio cholerae variant ctxB-rstR-rstC, REF" developed by us.